PS 3535 
.188 L5 

1921 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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THE LIFTED CUP 



THE LIFTED CUP 



BY 
JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE 

AUTHOR OF <' THE DOOR OF DREAMS " ; EDITOR OF 
"the little book of modern VERSE," ETC. 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1921 






COPYRIGHT, I92I, BY JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



M6- 



NOV -I 1921 

DCi.A627522 



/ lift it up again to you^ 

This cup you poured for me^ 

As one before an altar lifts 
Tlie cup of sanctity. 

Tliis deep, full cup^ this holy cup., 
Your lips have touched and mine.. 

Is mystical., for you have turned 
The -water into wine. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Thanks are due to the editors of Harper'' s Mag- 
azine^ McClure's Magazine^ Good Housekeepings 
Ainslee's Magazine^ and The Smart Set for permis- 
sion to reprint poenis which originally appeared in 
their pages. 



CONTENTS 



The Secret 


3 


*' We Who Give Our Hearts in Spring " 


4 


The Hours 


5 


Confession 


6 


The Captive 


r 


In Some To-Morrow 


8 


The Passing June 


9 


Transformation 


10 


Unsung 


11 


II 




The Star 


15 


Unrest 


16 


The Dream 


17 


Protest 


18 


The Altar 


19 


Two That Pass 


20 


"Fame and the Muse" 


21 


Seven Songs 


22 


The Miracle 


23 


ix 





CONTENTS 




The Wall 


24 


The Haunted Heart 


25 


The Veil 


26 


III 




The Waterfall 


29 


Marsh-Grass 


30 


Apple-Trffs 


31 


In the Green Mountains 


32 


Unveiled 


33 


Vision 


34 


One Star 


35 


The Green Tree in the Fall 


36 


In Whatsoever State 


37 


The Snare 


38 


The Dragon -Fly 


39 


IV 




Presence 


43 


The Avenue 


45 


The Quest 


46 


V 




The Door 


49 


Prescience 


50 


Revisited 


51 



CONTENTS 




Transience 


52 


The Festal Heart 


53 


To-Day 


54 


My Songs 


55 


The Radiant Loss 


56 


Possession 


57 



THE LIFTED CUP 

I 



THE LIFTED CUP 

I 

THE SECRET 

I GO in vesture spun by hands 

Upon no loom of earth, 
I dwell within a shining house 

That has no walls nor hearth; 

I live on food more exquisite 

Than honey of the bee, 
More delicate than manna 

It falls to nourish me; 

But none may see my shining house, 

Nor taste my food so rare, 
And none may see my moon-spun robe 

Nor my star-powdered hair. 



WE WHO GIVE OUR HEARTS 
IN SPRING" 

We who give our hearts in Spring, 

Putting all the old life by, 
We shall start with everything 

Keen and glad beneath the sky. 

We shall know the urge of grass 
Parting each detaining clod. 

Know the one sweet day they pass — 
Flowers, the spirit of the sod. 

We are caught into the flame 

Where the golden fire runs, 
All its ardor is the same, 

In the flesh and in the suns. 



THE HOURS 

You can enchant the hours for me 

So that they go — I know not where, 

Save only they are fleet as birds 
That flash through sunlit air. 

And all the hours that lie between — 
Oh, you have put on them a ban, 

So that they creep through parching wastes 
Like any caravan ! 



CONFESSION 

Hear the words that I would speak, 
Take the kiss that I would give, 

If Life, the long-withholding, 
Should one day bid us live. 

But I bear a coward's heart. 
Thinking only of the pain 

When hands that clasp so closely 
Shall be unclasped again. 



THE CAPTIVE 

Only a day ago, it seems, 

The world was a wide, wide place. 
And all my thoughts could wander far 

On the four winds of space. 

But now my thoughts are captive birds 
That have no will for flight. 

You shut them fast within your heart 
All on an April night. 



IN SOME TO-MORROW 

Roman ways shall know our feet 
Sometime in a golden Spring 

When these hours sweet and fleet 
Shall be but remembering. 

Resting in the ilex shade 

Of some path that Shelley knew, 
I shall no more be afraid 

To be true, as Life is true. 

And at evening when we stand 

In the flower-scented air 
Rising always from that land 

Like an incense fine and rare, — 

Lifted from the world apart. 

Hushed so deep from frets and harms, 
Beauty purging all my heart, — 

I shall turn unto your arms. 



THE PASSING JUNE 

I AM shut in as June goes by. 

And can but see one little tree 
Tossing its new leaves to the sky 

With the old ecstasy. 

And of the sky itself I see 
Only a curving arc of blue, 

That brings the larkspur dawn to me 
And holds the evening true. 

I am shut in as June goes by, 
But ever}^ day you come to me, 

And I am glad to lose the sky 
And every dancing tree. 



TRANSFORMATION 

1 Shall be beautiful when you come back, 
With beauty that is not of lips nor eyes, 
And you will look at me with swift surprise 

Seeing in me that loveliness I lack. 

And you will wonder how this beauty grew, 
In all the restless clamor of the days, 
Not knowing that I walk in cloistered ways 

Bearing within one rapt, still thought of you. 



10 



UNSUNG 

The songs I have not sung to you 
Will wake me in the night 

And hover in the dark like birds 
Whose wings are tipped with light. 

Like birds with restless, eager wings 
That quiver for their flight, 

The songs I have not sung to you 
Will wake me in the night. 



11 



II 



II 
THE STAR 

You were aloof as a star in space 
That holds alone its charted way, 

You felt the cold and stellar air 
Where winds of heaven play. 

But now I know the lonely God 

Who made all things from His desire, 

Gave to the star the whitest flame 
Because its heart is fire. 



15 



UNREST 

Now I shall know unrest again, 
And all my heart that was so still 

Will beat in me like troubled tides 
And urge me to its will. 

Now joy, like an ecstatic flame. 
Will light the dark about my bed- 

But with the morning I shall know 
That it was pain instead. 



16 



THE DREAM 

Before I knew that you would come, 
Before I knew that you would go, 

I dreamed it all with the prescience 
That one in dreams may know. 

You gave to me one wild sweet kiss 
That pierced me with a joy above 

The joy of any other kiss, 
For, oh, I dreamed it love! 



ir 



PROTEST 

Once to you a woman sang, 
Craving love a human thing, 

"Throne me not so high, my King! " 
In my heart her message rang. 

But lest love should sink and tire 
With his wings caught in a mesh, 

I would cry, against the ftesh, 
" Throne me higher, higher ! " 



18 



THE ALTAR 

Between our lips a ghostly thing 
Escapes and flies on noiseless wing, 
It is my soul that would not mate 
With your soul at the outer gate, 
But sought the still and hidden shrine 
Where pale lights bum to the divine, 
My soul that could not worship there 
Because it found the altar bare. 



19 



TWO THAT PASS 

We were but as two that pass 
With a lingering word, 

Yet for long its echoing 
In my heart I heard. 

Now you come and speak a word 

Passionate and dear, 
Then to-morrow you will go 

And leave me wondering here. 



20 



"FAME AND THE MUSE" 

Fame and the muse you would not yield, 
For love was but a transient thing, 

And so love waits above your door 
With outspread wing. 

For he must seek another one 

Who will not his high gift refuse, 

Since love alone can touch to fire 
Fame and the muse. 



21 



SEVEN SONGS 

Seven songs I made for you 
In the briefest days; 

Seven songs I made for you, 
Longing for your praise. 

Not of joy these fragile songs 

Oftener of pain ; 
But the pain is joy, since you 

Give me song again ! 



22 



THE MIRACLE 

They told me miracles had gone 

The way of childish tales, 
And that to call them back again 

Not any dream avails. 

It may be so to duller folk 

Who do not know like me 
How cold gray skies may break to rose 

And thrill with prophecy. 



23 



THE WALL 

Now we two are heart to heart, 

O most dear of all, 
Who were held so long apart 

By the sundering wall. 

But so suddenly it fell. 

At the final touch, 
We are dazed and cannot tell 

If we hope too much. 

We would wait to know the sum 

Of our joy and pain — 
But what if shadowy hands should come 

And build the wall again ? 



24 



THE HAUNTED HEART 

I AM not wholly yours, for I can face 

A world without you in the years to be, 
And think of love that has been given me 

By other men, and wear it as a grace ; 

Yes, even in your arms there is a space 
That yet might widen to infinity, 
And deep within your eyes I still can see 

Old memories that I cannot erase. 

But let these ghostly tenants of the heart 

Stay on unchallenged through the changing days 
And keep their shadowy leaseholds without 
fear. 
Then if the hour should come when we must part, 
We know that we shall go on haunted ways, 
Each to the end inalienably dear. 



25 



THE VEIL 

Let the last veil remain between us two, 

That we may keep love still a strange fair thing 
Which comes each day with a new marvelling 

And goes each night to dreams as fair and new. 

Leave still imsaid the dearest word of all, 
That I may wait more eagerly to hear, 
But each day speak a word more deep and dear 

That shall foretell the dearest word of all. 



26 



Ill 



Ill 
THE WATERFALL 

I WENT to see a waterfall 

When days were dull of song. 

And to its jubilant wild voice 
I listened deep and long. 

I thought that it would loose my dreams, 

But, ah, it could not free 
My bound heart, for it sang so loud 

It drowned the song in me. 



29 



MARSH-GRASS 

I SAW the marsh-grass blowing ; 

It took me far away ; 
For I was bom where marsh-grass 

Was endlessly at play. 

Its ripples were the gladdest things 

That one could ever see, 
So who would think that marsh-grass 

Would bring the tears to me ? 



30 



APPLE-TREES 

My childhood held a fairy sight — 

A thousand apple-trees, 
All pink and white for my delight 

And humming with the bees. 

They grew upon a green hillside, 

They sweetened all the air, 
They spread a tent of blossoms wide 

For my pavilion there. 

I broke the branches at my will, 

There was so vast a store; 
From out my arms the sprays would spill. 

But there were always more. 

Now I go out from city ways 

To see the apple-tree, 
For if I miss her flowering days 

The year goes ill with me. 



31 



IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS 

I DARE not look away 

From beauty such as this, 
Lest, while my glance should stray, 

Some loveliness I miss. 

The trees might choose to print 
Their shadow on the lake; 

The windless air might glint 
With aspen leaves that shake. 

Over the mountains there 

A thin blue veil might drift ; 

Then in a moment rare 

This thin blue veil might lift. 

Ah, I must pay good heed 

To beauty such as this. 
Lest, in some hour of need, 

Its loveliness I miss. 



32 



UNVEILED 

To-day the hills put off their haze 
And stand so green and clear 

That every peak remote and strange 
Is intimate and near. 

I can make out the very trees 
That mass upon their sides, 

VVnd look deep into the white cloud 
That swift above them rides. 

But, oh, I would not have them stand 
Unveiled by blowing air; 

Give me the blue, blue mists again 
That make them far and fair ! 



33 



VISION 

I CAME to the mountains for beauty, 
And I find here the toiling folk, 

On sparse little farms in the valleys, 
Wearing their days like a yoke. 

White clouds fill the valleys at morning ; 

They are round like great billows at sea, 
And roll themselves up to the hill-tops, 

Still round as great billows can be. 

The mists fill the valleys at evening ; 

They are blue as the smoke in the fall, 
And spread all the hills with a tenuous scarf 

That touches the hills not at all. 

These lone folk have looked on them daily. 
Yet I see in their faces no light ; 

Oh, how can I show them the mountains 
That are round them by day and by night I 



34 



ONE STAR 

One star over the mountains 

Comes earlier than all, 
And waits alone in the solemn sky 

Until the darkness fall. 

It parts the mist before it, 

It sheds a golden light. 
It watches while the evening melts 

Into the purple night. 

One star over the mountains, 

Eternal and yet new. 
One star over the mountains — 

My thought of you. 



35 



THE GREEN TREE IN THE FALL 

Did you forget to bud in Spring, 

O Green Tree in the Fall, 
That now you wear these fresh young leaves 

As for a coronal ? 

All of your mates within the wood 

Are in the crimson leaf, 
They had their swift, enamored spring. 

Their summertime too brief. 

But you — what chance befell that you 

Were cheated of the Spring, 
That now you cling so fast to leaves 

Wherein no bird will sing ? 

My heart is with you, little tree, 

For I was cheated too. 
And now I grasp at what I missed 

And cling as fast as you. 



36 



IN WHATSOEVER STATE 

I AM rebuked, O Beauty, 
That I have murmured so. 

When I see the stony places 
Where yellow daisies grow. 

Or when I see the milkweed, 
In a tangled country lane, 

Unfold her sea-shell blossoms 
To call the bee again, — 

I know I need not trouble 
To seek another place, 

If I have aught of beauty 
To offer up as grace. 



sr 



THE SNARE 

Many birds will fly away 
From the cages that I build^ 

Yet if one shall sing and stay, 
I have all the joy I willed. 

Many songs are in the air, 
Flitting like evasive birds, 

Ah, if I but one may snare 
In the cage of words. 



38 



THE DRAGON-FLY 

The day was set to a beautiful theme 

By the blue of a dragon-fly 
That poised with his airy wings agleam 

On a flower, as I passed by. 

So frail and so lovely — a touch would destroy ; 

He seemed but a fancy, a whim ; 
Yet this gossamer thing is a breath of God's joy, 

And Life is made perfect in him ! 



39 



IV 



IV 
PRESENCE 

I WILL go back to Italy, 

For well I know that there 
Your feet will still come climbing 

A worn, accustomed stair; 
And we will stand at evening 

On a little terrace hung 
High up above the Amo, 

While all the bridges flung 
Across the wide, dark river 

Are strung with golden light. 
And straight before us rises 

Miniato's jewelled height. 

Then in late summer afternoons, 
Just cooling from the heat, 

We'll go again exploring 
Each little narrow street, 

And rest in dim old churches 
And watch the pictured walls, 
43 



THE LIFTED CUP 

While through the ancient, hallowed glass 
The colored sunlight falls. 

But I will not go near the North 

Nor see the mountain snows, 
Nor look upon that valley 

Where the dread Piave flows, 
Lest they should dare to tell me 

That you are lying there — 
You who pervade the verj^ day 

Like warm, sun-lighted air! 



THE AVENUE 

It was but two weeks since you died, 
Yet you were strange and far 

As one who had a lifetime dwelt 
Upon an alien star, — 

When sudden in Manhattan streets 
Your presence smote me through, 

You had so loved the zest of life 
Upon Fifth Avenue! 



45 



THE QUEST 

I WOULD go soon, for if I stay 
You will have gone so far 

I cannot find you in that place 
Where the most radiant are. 

And all eternity will be 

But seeking after you, 
But coming to some gate to find 

That you have just passed through. 



46 



V 
THE DOOR 

There was a door stood long ajar 
That one had left for me, 

While I went trying other doors 
To which I had no key. 

And when at last I turned to seek 
The refuge and the light, 

A gust of wind had shut the door 
And left me in the night. 



49 



PRESCIENCE 

Ah, there were those who twined their wreaths 

From buds that I let fall, 
So rich was I in blossoming time 

That I had gifts for all; 

But what if, when the day is chill 

And flowers forget to blow, 
I should go begging back the gifts 

I gave them long ago ? 



50 



REVISITED 

You and I came down here once 

In our happiest days, 
It was May and birds were singing 

On the hndding sprays. 

Youth was high within us then, 

We could laugh at time, 
He could never touch us two 

With his icy rime. 

Now the boughs are black and bare, 
Snows without a stain — 

I could never come in May 
When life was quick again. 



51 



TRANSIENCE 

Did you come to me, indeed, 
And will you come again ? 

I know it but as leaves may know 
The fresh, keen breath of rain — 

Then in a moment in the sky 
The sun is shining plain. 

I know it but as boughs may know, 
When wild birds stop in flight. 

If they will come that way again 
Before the fall of night ; 

I know it but as travellers know 
Some swift and lovely sight. 



52 



THE FESTAL HEART 

By all the tests of human will 
I should be weary now ; 

Yet I am glad as any bird 
That sings upon a bough. 

For how shall weariness prevail, 
Or hold me in its thrall, 

When daily for your sake I keep 
An inner festival ? 



53 



TO-DAY 

What will it matter when I am dead 
If they remember or forget — 

Those unborn, whom I shall not know, 
Those who may live and love me )^et ? 

What will it matter if they praise 

Or if they treasure some word I say ? 

But, oh, it matters so very much 

That you should think of me to-day ! 



54 



MY SONGS 

I SANG my songs for you alone. 

But all the others heard, 
And thought that I had sung for them 

Each half-revealing word ; 

And on the four winds, back to me, 
Like freight of winged seed, 

Came song for song from all the rest — 
You only did not heed. 



55 



THE RADIANT LOSS 

Oh, I have lived to be so glad 

You failed me long ago, ' 
So glad you cast away the love 

That I had lavished so, 
So glad that you were dull and blind. 

So glad you did not know ! 

For in a way I had not dreamed 

I built my life anew, 
And all the structure of my days 

Into a wonder grew; 
And, oh, you left me free to love 

A greater one than you! 



56 



POSSESSION 

They all may go, for I have known the one 

Who will forever stay, 
Though each day tells me until time is done 

That he has gone away. 

He is the light that breaks in dawns at sea, 

The dream in mountain haze; 
He is the soul of wistful things to me 

In all the still procession of my days. 



57 



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